Being a
perfectionist, she goaded her employees to give their best and wooed their
successes with fantastic gifts and enhancement of their emoluments. Though her
employees admired her guts and talent, they often wondered about why she was so
short-tempered and impatient when they weren’t up to her mark. Her mark was the benchmark against which she judged all
her employees. She was ruthless and intolerant of sloppiness, mistakes and
carelessness and dealt with the people who indulged in these, with an iron
hand. If a client disapproved of a brochure sample and wanted to select another
one, she would ask the accounts department to recover a certain pre-determined
amount from that employee’s salary. If the copywriting was the issue, the
copywriter’s salary would be affected, and so on. No wonder, all her employees
worked with clockwork precision.
Though it was a
creative field, her employees had no creative freedom. They couldn’t improvise
on anything without her prior approval. Only she decided on what was good
enough to be shown to the clients as the final ad. But as her employees trusted
her experience and judgement, they were only too happy to indulge her. In a
way, this also divested them from any future responsibility regarding the
failure, if any, of the work done by them. But here lay the catch. If she was
the one who approved of all their work before-hand, how could she blame them in
the event of the client’s disapproval? Though resentful about this injustice,
none of her employees would dare to openly cross swords with her. After all,
they worked for their livelihood and enjoyed the work when their overbearing
Boss was not around!
And she was not
around throughout the day, being busy in client meetings, presentations or
going out to prospect new clients for the Agency. She would review all the work
done during the day, late at night and be ready with suggestions and
improvisations, which would be readily agreed to, by her employees. They knew
which side their bread was buttered. Besides, no one wanted to alter the status
quo, or be ridiculed and taunted publicly by the interfering and haughty Boss.
Secretly though, all of the twenty-five employees wished and hoped that she
would meet her equal one day!
*********************************************************************************
Shikha was the
only child of her doting parents. She had been granted all her demands,
unreasonable or otherwise, right since her childhood. It was little wonder
then, that she just couldn’t take no for an answer, or tolerate any one else’s
opinion. She didn’t listen or value anyone’s advice or suggestions. Her rule
was the law and woe be tide anyone who challenged her supremacy. This ego was
the bane of her existence, in her school and college days. Though she excelled
in her studies and cleared all her grades with distinction, she had also earned
the dubious distinction of being a snob. Needless to say, she didn’t have any
friends. Whereas any normal person would have felt disheartened and lonely,
Shikha was blissfully existing in her own exalted world, where she didn’t mind
being completely alone!
After she
obtained her post-graduate Diploma, her parents had started looking out for
suitable proposals for her, all of which were declared to be unsuitable for
their darling daughter, by Shikha herself. Her parents had at last given up,
after taunts by the suitors and their parents, that they should consider
marrying their beloved daughter with some King, rather than some lowly mortals
like them! They told Shikha that the ball was entirely in her court now. They
would agree to any one whom she liked or found to be worthy of her.
Shikha’s
father told his wife one day, “She’ll meet her match one day. Just wait and
see.” She retorted, “Let’s hope that she does, before she becomes an old hag or
before we are no more! I just want to play with my grand-children before I die.”
To be continued...
This story written by me was published in Alive magazine in January 2012.
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